Enter the Narrow Gate

 By Fernando Nietzen

Matthew 7:13 -14 “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it¨

I recently went to the coastal town of Golfito in Southern Costa Rica and had several hours to spare  for the return flight to the capital.

During this trip, I went for a walk to explore the trails and neighborhoods and came across a beautiful property. Since I love working in metal, I was impressed by the gates made entirely of iron.

One gate was huge for the driveway and then further up the road there was the walk-in gate;  the detail and handicraft was very well done and one could tell it took a lot of creativity and time.

Back home, I began reading a book we recently purchased called “The Greatest Words Ever Spoken”   These are Jesus’ own words broken down into over 150 categories. I was immediately drawn to one topic which I considered perhaps the most important: “Eternal Life”. I thought: what could possibly be more important than what Jesus Himself says about Salvation?

I was surprised to read the author affirming that these are the most important words any of us will ever read. These words come from the lips of the One who decides who enters heaven and who does not.

The verses quoted above  pretty much sum it up.  Because Jesus equates believing with doing what He tells us to do, we could say that believing is the first step to receiving the gift of eternal life.  If we believe, we enter that small gate, the narrow road leading to life is the doing part.  Salvation is both – an instant decision and a process, a gate and a road.

Notice that the believing and the doing refer back to Him, we cannot believe in other philosophies or in our own goodness.  Likewise, we cannot be doing things that we consider to be good and will hopefully get us into heaven. We ought not to be doing things with wrong motives either.

We need to be seeking His will and doing what He has told us to do for He alone is the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Jesus.

Let us enter the gate which leads to salvation and then continue on the  the narrow path to life abundantly –  in Jesus.